COMPLETION OF AUDUBON’S WoRK. 20! 
CHAPTER XV. 
wus the publication of the fifth and last 
volume of Ornithological Biographies, 
during the year 1839, Audubon had the hap- 
piness to witness the completion of his long pur- 
sued and dearly cherished plan. It was the 
achievement of no ordinary ambition—the grati- 
fication of impatience at the consummation of 
some light essay. In it, he beheld as it were, the 
fulfilment of his destiny—the realization of con- 
stant effort and aspiration—the result of the 
trials of a life-time, the fruits of an entire dedi- 
cation of all the faculties of existence to one 
great and honoured end. The advancement of 
science was his vocation, and in that vocation he 
nobly served as the worshipper of his Creator 
and the benefactor of his kind, which he was, 
intellectually and morally. For to comparatively 
few, even to those rarely gifted, is it given to 
follow from the days of infancy, with single- 
hearted desire, one great object—that object 
demanding, moreover, the entire surrender of 
every other for its attainment. Yet to Audubsn 
